Amongst the Bible’s most notable “Divine Appointments,” there is one that stands alone as Jesus takes a Detour to Deliver a woman who found herself – well, all alone. It seems that she had spent her whole life “Lookin’ for love in all the wrong places, lookin’ for love in too many faces…” (credit Johnnie Lee) Praise God, just like in the 1980 country song, the woman in today’s devotional account would find what she had been dreaming of and would, in fact, spend the rest of her days proclaiming, “God bless the day I discovered you (Lord), Lookin’ for Love.” Now that all the country and western fans have that ballad stuck in their heads, I’ll get down to the matter at hand, the work of the Master’s Hand – the Saving of a Samaritan Sinner.
If you would like to follow along, peruse the passage found in John’s Gospel (4:1-39). Here, we find Jesus do the unthinkable as He journeyed through the forbidden place of Samaria and, even worse, have a conversation with a Samaritan – not just any Samaritan but a known sinner, a woman of the world. This nameless woman would become known as the “Woman at the Well” as her story has now been told and re-told for the past two thousand years.
What you may remember from Sermons and Sunday School lessons is that Jesus “Must Needs Go Through Samaria” (vs. 4). These five words let us know of our Sensitive Savior who couldn’t care less about His own public scrutiny or shame and couldn’t care more for the very woman whose scrutiny and shame left her destitute and drawing water from an abandoned, out of town well. This well, far from those who pointed their self-righteous fingers at her while looking down their hypocritical noses at her, gave her a sense of security through obscurity.
Hoping to go unnoticed by the gossips and slanderers of her hometown, this Samaritan Sinner encountered a Stunning Situation that would lead to a Spiritual Showdown between the empty promises of lust and lurid affairs and the eternal promises of love and her Lord’s affection.
A brief but life-changing conversation about everything from living water to lasting worship would lead to her Sure Salvation. It really is true, “Just a little talk with Jesus makes it right.” WOW – now that was a quick synopsis of the narrative of the Samaritan Sinner turned Saint … I wanted to share about her Conversation & her Conversion quickly so that I could show you her Consequence in more detail.
John 4:28-29 gives us a great 4-Point Outline of the Evidence of the Encounter of our Leading Lady and her Loving Lord …. “The Woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and saith to the men, come… see Christ.”
NOTE: (1) Her Absolute Abandonment – she left a very valuable possession, the very pot that she used daily to carry water from the well. Symbolically, she had been given Living Water, Lasting Water, a Well of Water that would never run dry. Therefore, she had no need of the Fleeting and Failing Waters of this old world any longer.
(2) Her Miraculous Mission – of all of the places in the world she could have been sent on mission, this new convert wasted no time going straight to the hardest place on earth, back to the very streets she once promiscuously roamed. Her Raunchy Reputation should have closed the doors on her “Ministry” but, in fact, the genuine change that was so obviously evident actually became the key that opened the door to her village and to the hearts of her people who were thirsting for the same living water that she had found by Jacob’s well.
(3) Her Passionate Pursuit – She did more than suggest folks might want to consider Christ; she begged them to believe. She was open and honest that Christ had exposed her past so that he could expel her from it. Dare we think that such a woman could not be affective, or that possibly we wouldn’t be either, we must consider the (4) Outcome of her Outreach (vs. 30, 39). “They went out of the city and came to Jesus… Many of the Samaritans believed on Him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that I ever did.” That’s right, this unlikely heroine had actually accomplished something that even the Lord Himself didn’t – she did a Mighty Work in her own hometown. Remember, “Jesus did not perform many mighty works in Nazareth because of their unbelief.” (Matt. 13:58).
Our takeaways from this lesson are profound … Never let your past shape your future. Never believe the lie that Jesus only loves the Saint, after all, He died for the Sinner. Never believe that Salvation is only about forgiveness of our old life, for it is also about the faithfulness of our new life. Always remember, Salvation requires us to give up in or to gain (she left her pot – what do we need to turn loose of or what might need to turn loose of us?) And finally, never underestimate what the Power of the Gospel can accomplish when we are faithful to Passionately Abandon Sin, be on Mission for our Savior and Pursue the Sinner with the life changing message of the Cross
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